Reading
BBC Sound Effects
The BBC release 16,000 sound effects free for non-commercial use in WAV format. I mean, that's amazing, but what I did notice was the great meta data. For example:
Two false starts, constant run, stop. (2 1/4 h.p. 4-stroke)
Paper Sizes
International paper sizes in a rather fetching website. Unfortunately the aesthetic is somewhat marred by the Carbon ad unit.
The State of UX in 2020
Lots of good stuff in here. I was slightly disappointed to see all of the 'things of year' at the end of the piece were industry self-referencing. How about book of year being from a tangental industry like architecture? If UX could do something next year, it would be to look outwards.
Söhne Collection · Klim Type Foundry
Beautiful specimen for a beautiful typeface.
Söhne is the memory of Akzidenz-Grotesk framed through the reality of Helvetica. It captures the analogue materiality of “Standard Medium” used in Unimark’s legendary wayfinding system for the NYC Subway.
CORE Principle and Marginal Gains
Excusing the dated production values, and Team Sky's troubles in the past few years, this is the best video i've found of Sir Dave Brailsford's explanantion of his CORE Principle, and Marginal Gains. A lot of which isn't just applicable to elite sport, but to all management.
Start a newsletter
When you have shipped a design system it's amazing how important communications around that system become. Robin has some fascinating insights into how a humble newsletter has increased the reach and engagement of the system at Gusto.
How the Financial Times is building mini-brands within the global FT
Great piece on the FT. One standout for me was the simple calculation they use for defining engagement, which has always been a tricky thing to quantify and track. With this equation, it defines a customer score. Sure, simple enough for the board room but actually it could be a really useful metric.
The key is something called RFV. That stands for recency, frequency, and volume, a measure of a reader’s habit and loyalty with the FT. More specifically, it’s made up of three variables: time since last visit (recency), number of visits in the last 90 days (frequency), and amount of counted content read in the past 90 days (volume). An algorithm uses those variables to score engagement. “We’ve seen double-digit growth in engaged subscribers for the last three years,” the company says.